Americans spend a lot of money on sports every year. Sports franchises in the U.S. bring in nearly $40 billion in yearly revenue, with money coming from ticket and merchandise sales, media rights, and sponsorship fees. Even with technology making major televised games accessible from anywhere, many serious fans still prefer live action — and the best seats in the house.

As Serena Williams volleyed back and forth with Ajla Tomljanovic during her final tennis match in September 2022, 4.6 million viewers (an ESPN record for the sport) tuned in. And a bunch of them were watching from the Sports Bra in Portland, Oregon, which grew so silent you could hear a potato chip drop to the floor—despite a crowd that spilled into the street, where fans cupped their hands over the glass windows to watch the action inside.

Five defeats and no wins - that's how the first professional season for basketball star Caitlin Clark started. She didn't score as she usually does and rarely found a rhythm with her teammates. And the criticism of the 22-year-old player is already piling up - with no grace period: Is she too small for the professional league? Too delicate? Too weak? Can she not handle the pressure of expectations? Is there racism behind all the hype about the white player, which deliberately overlooks black players with greater talent?

For the longest time, we’ve thought about the marriage between sports and educational institutions on a competitive level. From Friday Night Lights with high school football, to Saturday afternoons in college, to the madness in March with NCAA basketball. The representation of schools in the form of athletic competition has always united student bodies, but even more so, has been an added source of entertainment.

On Friday, the Las Vegas Convention and Visitors Authority announced an unprecedented new sponsorship program: $100k to each of the Las Vegas Aces players, from superstars to rookies. On the heels of that announcement, however, the WNBA confirmed that it would be investigating this sponsorship deal for possible violation of league rules. But why? Today, executive producer Sonja Cho Swanson talks with professor Nancy Lough, co-director of the UNLV Sports Innovation Institute, about the complicated rules of endorsements, sponsorships, and pay-to-play in pro sports — and how we can get to pay parity for female athletes.

Las Vegas Aces star A'ja Wilson says members of her team had no idea about the surprise they were set to receive on Friday. "I don't think people really understand, but we didn't know what was going on," Wilson said after practice at the team's facility in Henderson on Monday. "Our city is behind us 100% and they're giving us what we deserve."

Las Vegas loves its sports teams. The WNBA’s Aces arrived from San Antonio, Texas. We welcomed the Raiders, and soon-to-be Las Vegas A’s from Oakland. But the Vegas Golden Knights are Vegas-born, and their birth certificate was forged in our community’s darkest hours.

What does it say about car insurance companies that so many have celebrity endorsers?